[ExI] Beowulf

[hkhenson]

At 11:23 PM 11/22/2007, samantha wrote:

>On Nov 21, 2007, at 10:20 PM, spike wrote:

snip

> > Keith, I have a question regarding a news story that has been making
> > the
> > rounds last couple days.  It seems to be causing xenophobic war
> > memes having
> > nothing to do with future prospects.  In terms of conflicts between
> > societies and EP, how do we deal with the case of the Saudi woman
> > who was
> > sentenced to 100 lashes for the crime of being raped?  Then when she
> > appealed the absurd sentence, they doubled it to 200?
>
>Awful as that is why is it our business to deal with such at all?  Do
>we believe that homogenous norms should be enforced worldwide by
>strength of arms were other means fail?  If so then we can look
>forward to unending war, much terrorism and depleted economic prospects.

There are evolutionary psychology reasons to enforce homogenous norms 
world wide to *avoid* "unending war, much terrorism and depleted 
economic prospects." Cultures (of which the Arabic culture is one) 
that degrade women have high population growth. Exactly why high 
population growth is coupled to treating women badly is up for argument.

Assuming a causal relation (which may or may not be true), I have 
argued that population growth in excess of economic growth is at the 
root of wars and related social disruption such as terrorism. And we 
do have the example of the IRA running out of support when the 
effects of a large reduction in the number of children worked its way 
through the Irish population demographics.

Now I don't have the least idea of what influence could be used to 
change Arabic culture in the desirable direction of a lower birth 
rate except that better treatment of women seems to be associated 
with lower birthrates. Irish culture is a lot more accessible and I 
have no idea of what happened there either, or in the rest of Europe 
before that.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Keith